Russian schools could teach from a uniform history textbook under United Russia party plans. Photograph: Franz-Marc Frei/Corbis

Russia's ruling political party is gathering academics to draw up a uniform textbook presenting a party-approved version of Russian history and seeking to downplay the horrors of the Soviet era.

"We understand that the school is a unique social institution that forms all citizens," Irina Yarovaya, the deputy head of the Duma's constitutional law committee, told a meeting of 20 party members and academics today.

"We need a united society. We need a united textbook."

The move comes amid a mass ideological project, promoted by the United Russia party, seeking to build a national identity on the glories of its second world war victory, turning a blind eye to some of the crimes committed in the Soviet Union.

The meeting, hosted by the Government-Patriotic Club of the United Russia party in the 150-year-old halls of Moscow's main library, continued in that vein.

"What happened can't be undone," Leonid Polyakov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, said. "[The book] should not be a dreary look at Russia or apology for what was. Its interpretation of victims and mistakes should not dominate."

Since the beginning of the year, Russia's ruling duo have made a series of conciliatory gestures to the west as the country promotes a new foreign policy designed to boost sagging foreign investment.

Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, attended a ceremony at Katyn forest to commemorate the Polish victims of the Soviet massacre there, while President Dmitry Medvedev condemned Josef Stalin for committing "mass crimes against his own people".

Yet the leadership is still grappling with how to approach a difficult history with which it has yet to fully come to terms.

The Government-Patriotic Club is part of a top-down project aiming to build patriotism, alongside youth parties such as Nashi and the Young Guard. One of its slogans reads: "We are proud of the past, we believe in the future."

Its main focus has been building pride in Russia's second world war victory, and the new history textbook would allow it to further spread that message.

Andrei Loginov, Putin's envoy to the Duma, supported the move. "There exists a uniform text for science, physics and maths – why not for literature and history?" he said.

"We're talking about the history of Russia – the basic textbook must be unified across the country. Otherwise, you get too varied a version and people can't sit down and have a conversation together."

Participants in the meeting argued over whether or not to approve a single textbook or a single set of standards, with Isaak Kalina, the deputy education minister, supporting the latter.

They pre-empted charges of censorship, saying students were free to seek information on the internet. Yet there are signs the Kremlin is also paying increasing attention to the web.

Amid the pro-government furore, there was one dissenting voice. "A totalitarian society is not one ruled by despotic leaders, but a society which has a single ideology, a single set of ideas and feelings," Natalya Lebedeva, a renowned historian, said.

"If we don't know the mistakes or the crimes of the past, we'll face these crimes again in the future. The next rulers will be harsher, more totalitarian. And then Stalinism can be repeated."

She was silenced by Yarovaya, who chaired the meeting and asked the academics present to draw up a new textbook, which the party would encourage the education ministry to adopt.

"This is not the choice of some politicians," she said. "This is society's choice."

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